[JNC Lyon]

Scott Witter,
  What did you think of the Mill Creek course overall? How does it compare to other new courses you have seen, as well as to Albanese's other work? I was very impressed with the course in Rochester, and I am interested to know more about his design work.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Shivas,

I don't know about your eyes, but, I can't see little mounds in the fairway at 250 yards.

They blend in too well with the surrounding fairway.

I don't know if you've ever played Wild Horse.
If not, I'd suggest that you make the effort.
It's a remarkable golf course built on a shoestring budget.

I only wish those in charge hadn't allowed the surrounding homes to be so close to the golf course and so prominent in the golfer's eye.

If Wild Horse was surrounded by terrain instead of tract houses I think its status would be loftier.

[DMoriarty]

Shivas,

... why do you fret these things when you play golf?  

I honestly don't get it.

I agree, you honestly dont get it.  I do not fret these things when I play golf.  Nor do I worry about these things when I play golf, nor will any of these things drive me bananas.  So thanks for your concern, but it is misplaced.  While it is quite a popular approach around here, my views on golf course strategy and design are not based on my own golf game.   Why is this so hard for you to understand?

Now as to the topic . . .

First, noone said we were talking exclusively about tee balls.  Read my posts.  I certainly wasnt talking about tee balls.  That is solely your contribution.  I am glad you agree that a hump directly in front of a green is a strategic feature.  I am sure you will gladly extend that logic to depressions in front of greens as well.

Second, you are the one who started talking about "small" depressions, not Doug.  I made the mistake of adopting your language, assuming we were talking about depressions, bumps large enough to have strategic significance.  In fact, if you read my post that is pretty clear.  Nonetheless, I agree that if a depression or bump is so small that it isnt of real strategic consequence, then it should be considered strategically important.  This of course is a truism, but since that seems to be your whole point then I agree with it.  

All that being said, it sometimes doesnt take much ground movement to have a significant strategic import. But that is a little off of topic and I dont want to hijack Patrick's thread.  

[Patrick_Mucci]

Dave Moriarty,

You're correct, the centerline hazard can be on the drive, second or approach shot.

The Road Hole bunker might even qualify.

[RJ_Daley]

I will admit, however, that when I think of "centerline hazards", I think tee ball.  It should certainly include 2nd shots on par 5's or other fairway hazards.  I'm not sure it includes hazards around the green complex because (1) they're better thought of as part of the green complex and (2)they are static, and pin positions move, so a centerline pot bunker generally isn't a centerline pot bunker when the pin is far right or far left.

I gotta go with that def., Dave.  I'm thinking of the fronting bunker on DavidM's beloved 13th RC.  There are many other examples of such a fronting bunker to a large boomer sort of green, where the angle if positioned correctly setting up the third shot (or second which I never seem to get to play since I'm not that long ) would take out the concept of 'centerline'.  Then there are the par 3s that have a centerline bunker, but too close to the green to give the concept of depth perception trickery it's full measure of effectiveness.  I'm thinking of the gapping bunker at Wild Horse #11, or the pot fronting Crystal Downs #14, or 6 and 17 Tobacco Road.  There  really are a bunch of them.  

The ideal center line bunkers on second shots of par 4s are like 18 Wild Horse, and second shots par 5s 3, 14, 17 WH.  Tee ball center lines like 5 Sand Hills, and slightly off line, but within confines of LZ, 2-3,7,12 top shot, 16,17,18 WH.  

When you think of it, there really are alot of them around the country, and yet, are there enough?

[DMoriarty]

Shivas,  Doug talked about small bunkers or depressions or evergreen trees or tiny lakes or anything else that was small relative to the size of the fairway, so that there was ample fairway to go around.   You'll have to ask him whether tiny bumps one couldnt see from the tee count.  But Shivas, who cares?  I've agreed with you that if a depression or little bump is so small that it has no strategic consequence, then it shouldnt be considered.  So what is your point here?
_________________

As for your and RJ's exclusion of near green-hazards as centerline hazards, it seems an artificial distinction, and I dont follow either of your logic.  Assuming adequate fairway width (a necessity with many  centerline bunkers) then greenside centerline bunkers still have to be negotiated similarly to landing area centerline features, only the golfer can start negotiating them a shot earlier.  The pin placement may instruct certain golfers in where they should go, but the golfer still has to recognize this and execute.  

RJ, you'd be surprised on RC 13 how often golfers have to approach with the bunker between them and the pin, even when the pin is cut to one of the sides.  Then there is the pin which looks to be on one side of the bunker, but the angle is best from the other . . . I'll let you figure out which pin this is.  
_______

As to the rest, Shivas, your fascination with how I do or dont play golf is a distraction, and positively annoying.  If you dont like the way you think I choose to play, then don't play with me.  My golf game has nothing to do with this website, so let it go.

[DMoriarty]

Let it go?  Let it go?  YOU brought it up.  I have no fascination with the way you play golf and didn't mention it once.  Not once.

Not once?  Well then I must have been responding to another Shivas . . .

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, you've got to mellow out on this stuff.  YOu're going to drive yourself bananas worring about all this stuff.  
 ... why do you fret these things when you play golf?      

[Michael Dugger]

I only wish those in charge hadn't allowed the surrounding homes to be so close to the golf course and so prominent in the golfer's eye.

If Wild Horse was surrounded by terrain instead of tract houses I think its status would be loftier.

Hey RJ, don't you have a home here???

[Patrick_Mucci]

Michael Dugger,

You have your FACTS wrong.

RJ owns a lot there, land, not a home.

Have you ever been to Wild Horse and seen the homes in proximity to the golf course and the visual impact they have on the golf course ?

[Gerry B]

If trees count - then include Scarboro in toronto -Tillinghast's only existing contribution to golf design north of the border.There is tree in the middle of the fairway on the 350 yd uphill par 4 3rd. It is situated approx 225 yards off the tee. While it is not large - it does come into play.

[TEPaul]

The real irony of a subject like this one is there may be far more central hazard features (bunkers and such practically surrounded by fairway) done in recent times (the last ten or so years) then there were in the entire era of the Golden Age!  

[RJ_Daley]

The real irony of a subject like this one is there may be far more central hazard features (bunkers and such practically surrounded by fairway) done in recent times (the last ten or so years) then there were in the entire era of the Golden Age!

That has some interesting implications Tom.  Are we a bunch of old fuddy duddies that have golden era, classic design biases, always extolling the virtues of what we might sometimes imagine were classic features like centerline bunkers, "imagining" them as ubiquitous in the golden age era; when they may not have been used in as widespread of a manner we are imagining?

Imagine that!

Then; are we having some sort of influence on modern archies in our ongoing little discussions here that many archies say they don't have time to read, encouraging more use of centerline hazard features?

[A_Clay_Man]

One aspect that has not been mentioned is the scale of said hazard.

Dye Fore used a massive centerline bunker on it's home hole(or was it the penultimate?), that didn't particularly work in it's context.

Isn't "Hell" bunker the epitome (and origin) of the concept and principle?

[A_Clay_Man]

I only wish those in charge hadn't allowed the surrounding homes to be so close to the golf course and so prominent in the golfer's eye.

If Wild Horse was surrounded by terrain instead of tract houses I think its status would be loftier.

How does the visual impact of elaborate clubhouses differ from tract housing?

[RJ_Daley]

Adam, the one focal point of an attractive club house, representing home to the golfer is far different than willy nilly roof lines.

[A_Clay_Man]

Dick, I can understand that having golfed Banff with the massive hotel looming very large, but even so, it's proximity was not what I would call adjacent.

The bigger issue for me is not the visual impact of inconsequential surrounds, but, more importantly is the quality of the golf course.
Places like WH, TOC (i assume), and even Smeyer's Southern Dunes, captivates the golfer's awareness to the extent that off property visuals have little to do with the quality of the course.

[RJ_Daley]

Adam, it really is dependent on milieu.  Somehow the scene wouldn't be the same without the backdrop of the "ol grey toon".  

Yet, the long view at WH is impeded by roof lines, and asphalt shingles at that.  The first years out there were really special with the south and western ridges glisttening and reflecting various color in the ground at first or last light of dawn and dusk.  No, the course is still the course.  The centerline hazards still get the juices up.  But... I don't get the visions of Buffulo Bill and the Native Americans riding down out of the hills anymore with the roofs in the way.

[A_Clay_Man]

With the housing boom, I suppose things are substantially different from just three years ago.
And, Confirms everything affects GCA.

[JESII]

Wouldn't playing area be the biggest reason not to use this approach? Maybe it was mentioned earlier in the thread, but if you're going to force a decision of one side or the other of a particular feature doesn't that significantly increase the total playable area required for that particular hole?

[TEPaul]

"Maybe it was mentioned earlier in the thread, but if you're going to force a decision of one side or the other of a particular feature doesn't that significantly increase the total playable area required for that particular hole?"

I'm sure it probably does. Here's a perfect example----NGLA's #8 (the Bottle Hole), one of the best real centerline hazard holes anywhere. From the right side of the fairway to the left side is 67 yards, and the last bunker in the centerline which is perpindicular to the line of play (not in-line like the rest) is 13-14 yards wide.

[Patrick_Mucci]

How does the visual impact of elaborate clubhouses differ from tract housing?

Most golf courses have only one clubhouse at one location.
Wild Horse is one of those golf courses.
Wild Horse has many houses, at many locations

Most Clubhouses aren't visible with every shot.

Most Clubhouses are sited at an extreme end of the property.

How would you classify Shinnecock's clubhouse when it was first built ?    National's ?   Seminole's ?   TOC ?
Riviera's, Medinah's, Winged Foot's ?

What clubhouses were you referencing ?[/color]

[DMoriarty]

Interesting that the topic of bordering houses comes up on a centerline bunker thread . . .  

Patrick or anyone, did you find that the centerline bunker brought the houses more into focus, since the golfer must play to the sides of the fairways where the houses are presumably located?

I havent played the course, so I am just assuming the houses border the fairways.  Please correct me if I am wrong.

[Doug Siebert]

Shivas, DMoriarty:

When I was talking about "small" depressions in my earlier post, I meant depressions that were small (in width) compared to the width of the fairway.  And though I didn't type it, I was also thinking of a depression with rough in it, so it would be of strategic significance assuming that either the rough was tall enough to be a real problem or was at least tall enough to hold your ball in a really annoying sloped lie rather than ending up neatly on the bottom with only a blind shot at worst to worry about.  So shame on you both for arguing with each other when you should have simply read my mind!

[DMoriarty]

Doug,  thanks for the clarification.  I hope you dont expect that to stop us from arguing ,though.  In fact, I wont be surprised if Shivas now argues that this isnt really what you were thinking at all.  

[ForkaB]

Heck, I've even seen Hurzdan and Fry holes with'em. It's all the rage. Ever since that heratic Rihc Goodale started bad-mouthing Max Behr, and that feisty Tom Paul started quote'n him and all, right here in a public forum.

Cut back on the magic mushroomns, Adam.....

I never dissed Maxie, just his style(?) of writing.  As for "centerline hazards," watch this webspace for some of my thoughts, which should be published shortly.

Cheers

Rich

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